


Crease

by The Missus (schwarmerei1)



Series: The Paper Series [4]
Category: E.R.
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schwarmerei1/pseuds/The%20Missus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim and Kerry come to see the other’s perspective on events.<br/>Spoilers: Up to 7.22 “Rampage”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crease

**Author's Note:**

> This series was written between _Where the Heart is_ and _Rampage_ and begins when Kim gets Kerry’s letter.  Between Lori and the letter, the angst was unbearable, and I stopped work on the first series to get this all down and out.

  
  


_ “Or perhaps we should go?” _

_ Kerry stood.  “You’re right, Kim.  I’ll walk you to your car.” _

At Kim’s car Kerry stepped in front of her.  “This evening has been beautiful, Kim, so much what I wanted, so perfect.  Thank you.”  

“Thank _you_ , Kerry.”

“But I can’t let you leave without asking you, Kim.  Tell me.  Have you finished your thinking on this?  I... I need to know if this is... goodbye.”  Kerry’s face was open and stoic and courageous.  Her eyes glittered with the strain of seeing two outcomes at once.   

“I don’t want it to be, Kerry,” Kim whispered.  “Please, I really, I truly don’t want it to be.”  Her loosened hair fell over her shoulders and hid her face and the cameo from Kerry’s line of sight.  Kerry hesitantly touched Kim’s hair, as if expecting an electric shock, and tucked a few hanks behind her ear before she withdrew.  Kim bit her lip at the tenderness in her touch.  A single tear snuck down her cheek.

Kerry was absolutely still, waiting for Kim to either reach for her keys or speak.  As it turned out, it was neither; Kim leaned slightly and quickly drew Kerry’s shoulders to her, closing her eyes and sinking softly into a kiss: a tender, anxious kiss that soothed nothing but moved them forward into something other than awkwardness, something newer than doubt.  Kerry’s heart wept and she sank her hands into Kim’s back, willing her deeper, closer, more definite.  Kim moaned almost imperceptibly in anguish, still at war about her security, but united by her desire.  Kerry heard her, took her meaning and replied in kind, exhaling in a minor key of reawakening.  

It was Kerry who pulled back from Kim, breathing deeply.  She stood still a moment, collecting herself.

“Come home with me, Kerry.”

Kerry lifted the same stoic expression to her.  “And then?”

Kim whispered exhaustedly, as indeed, her defenses may have been.  “Just come home with me, Kerry... come home and take me to bed.”

Kim’s words raised every hair on Kerry’s body, searing deep through her belly; but her core numbness remained.  That would need dedicated restorative efforts.

“Please.”

Kerry nodded, kissing her fingertips softly.  “Shall we leave a car?”

“No. Follow me.”

____________________

They came home together as they had used to do, draping coats over the back of the couch, kicking off shoes in the entry hall.  Kim put her open hands on Kerry’s back as she knelt to untie her shoes, warming her delightfully.  Kerry stood and turned to face Kim, and they tentatively came together, softly at first, unsure of the other.  Kim moaned again, low and teary.  Kerry was overcome with desire for her, and slid open her mouth to taste Kim.  

The first touch of their tongues was too much for Kerry; she pulled back gasping.  Kim flashed back to their first night together, when Kerry had done the same thing, fearful of her own responses as much as she had been of anything.  Surely Kerry hadn’t crept back to that place?  She got no answer but another kiss, deep and declarative.  She felt herself dampen and clutch slightly, her breasts felt full under her dress.  Kim had a distinct urge to rub her face up and down Kerry’s entire body.  

They stumbled back toward the bedroom, losing Kerry’s sweater on the way.  Kim impatiently unhooked Kerry’s bra and Kerry smoothed her hands up Kim’s nylons, finding the waistband beneath her silky dress.  She pulled them off Kim, who had spent the evening braless, leaving her coated in nothing but the silk of her dress as Kerry pushed her down into her unmade bed.  

Even as Kim’s hands spread warmth and desire over Kerry’s skin, Kerry was aware of the chill she carried.  Her brain would not quiet, her senses were engaged but so was her surveillance.  She quickened her breathing, not from arousal, but from worry.  Would Kim still want her after being with Lori?  Here?  In this bed?  Could she possibly compete with an active, adorable, undamaged young dyke?  Kerry felt Kim tug at her waistband.  She undid her slacks and let them fall to the floor, quickly stripping her underwear and climbing up into Kim’s familiar bed.  As she settled, she slid Kim’s dress up and off her, into a small black puddle by the head of the bed.  Kim impatiently scraped it onto the floor. 

Kerry’s mouth watered at the sight of her.  That much of her desire was plenty intact; her relief at feeling it only made her more grateful to Kim.  She sank her open mouth down on her neck, taking the cameo ribbon in her teeth and tugging.  Kim whimpered and torqued her neck to feel Kerry’s pull against the ribbon from every angle she could.  The snaps gave and Kerry tossed her head to throw it onto the end table.  She missed, and the clatter as it hit the floor turned Kim on so much she had to gather her knees together and clench tightly.

Kerry felt the heat rise between Kim’s legs as she settled on her side to face her.  The rich scent of her wetness was exquisite, even rarer for the grief that had gone into its absence from Kerry’s senses.  She would concentrate on Kim, she decided, and give her own reticent body time to calm and trust.  She could not shake the images of Kim and Lori together.  She talked herself through it logically, waiting to feel the tension ease.

But Kim was too eager for her; she slid a hand between them, along Kerry’s belly and down to the core of her, pressing softly through the unforgettably familiar coppery tangles as she lowered her soft open mouth to Kerry’s nipple.  Kerry lurched upward, her breast aroused and wanting, but her vulva rested calmly, closed to Kim’s touch, unresponsive.  

Kim drew her hand up to Kerry’s belly, surprised.  “What’s wrong, Kerry?”  

Kerry took Kim’s hand and moved it slightly, over to her back.  “Just don’t, don’t... touch me... yet... Kim.  Please.  I don’t want you to touch me yet.  Not just yet.”  Her body became deadweight in Kim’s arms, formidable.

Kim drew herself back from her.  She had never seen her like this before.  “Talk to me, Kerry.”

There was a long moment between them.  Kim’s senses went on alert.  ‘Don’t do this, Kerry,’ she sent out to her...

“I can’t get it out of my mind, Kim.  All I can think of is that the last place you had your hands was inside another woman.  You had her in this bed, right here, right here where I’m lying... Kim, I feel so, so...”

“Jealous?”

“No....rejected.  Second rate.” 

“Kerry, it was comfort sex, nothing more.  That’s all.”

“I know you can handle that Kim, but I... can’t.”

Kim’s eyes widened in alarm.

“I mean I will handle it, Kim, but I’m lying to you if I say I could respond to you right now.  It’s chilling, just chilling to think of you with her.”

“Kerry... I, I don’t know what to say.  Do you want to be here?  Do you want to go home?”

“No.  No, Kim, I don’t want to leave you here... I want to be with you.  I’m just trying, just trying to get the thought of her off me.”  Kerry made a motion down her own arm, wiping off a taint.  

Kim was dumbfounded.  Surely Kerry understood the difference between casual sex and love?  She was here with her now, wasn’t she?  They had worked so hard on this.

“Ker... what can I say to you?  What can I do to get you here with me?  Please, baby, please be here with me.”

Kerry gathered the sheets up to cover her breasts and sat up, tucking herself in against the headboard.  Kim, blinking in dismay, sat facing her, tucking one leg under the other, close enough to reach out and touch Kerry’s shoulders.  She did not, however, touch her.  Kim’s lips were slightly open and her eyebrows crept up in concern.  

Kerry’s gaze was level, but her voice was mellow and carried no accusation.  “What side did she sleep on?”

Kim pointed.  Kerry remembered coming home to that same spot on dozens of nights.  She had woken up there on their last morning together.  She put the thought from her mind, the mystery having been solved.  She turned to Kim again.

“Did you come, Kim?”

Kim blinked rapidly.  There was no point in lying.  “Yes, Kerry, I did.”  Kim licked her lips.  This was not going well at all.

“Is she... an ex?  An old friend?” 

Kim picked up a pillow and crossed her arms around it, covering her breasts and adding some suddenly necessary bulk to her underbelly.  “No.  I didn’t know her.”

“How did you meet her?”

“I met her at this Irish pub I’d been going to when I had so many... nights off.  I’d go by myself and sit at a small table, drinking shots and Guinness and listening to the music.  I’d stay until I had my three-shot-two-beer limit, and then walk home.  I... had a lot of trouble sleeping when I wasn’t working, Kerry.  

“Anyway.  Lori sat down across the table from me on one of the first nights I went.  She introduced herself, said she was in town for the spring semester at the art school.  She flirted outrageously with me, and I liked that.  But I couldn’t bring myself to respond.  She knew something was wrong, but she was cool about it.  Asked if I wanted to talk, which I emphatically did not.  She asked me to go home with her, and I said no.  She got up and gave me her number, told me to call her when I was over you.”

“And you obviously did.”

“No, I didn’t.  But she did come back over to my table about a week ago.  Asked me if I wanted to talk.  And I did, a little, until I thought I’d start to cry.  She took both my hands and asked me what I wanted to do, right at that moment.”  Kim paused.

“Tell me.”  Kerry’s tone was still neutral but there was force behind it.  She really did want to know.  When caught between a rock and a hard place, the Weaver Way Out was straight through.

Kim prepared to resign the evening to the conversation that perhaps they should have had in the restaurant after all.  “I said that I wanted to take her home and fuck her until I couldn’t feel you anymore.  And she got up and led me to the door.  And then I did, and she stayed the night.  And then she left that morning, and she ran into you, and I guess you can kinda take it from there.”

“Was she the only one, Kim?”  Kerry was looking intently at her hands, unwilling to see a telltale flicker across Kim’s eyes.  Kerry didn’t expect her to lie, and she didn’t.

“She was.  I thought about it more than once, but she was the only woman I took home.”  ‘Might as well be honest,’ Kim thought, ‘this certainly couldn’t be going much faster downhill.’

Kerry exhaled for the first time in several seconds.  Neither of them realized that she had been holding her breath, bracing.

“Good.  Good.”

That suddenly didn’t sit well with Kim.

“But what if there had been more, Kerry?”  Kim was beginning to find her sense of righteousness.  “What does it matter?  Why should it matter who I’ve been with if I choose to be here with you now?  Can’t you just accept what I tell you?  I love you, Kerry.  I want you.  And when I was sure I couldn’t have you, I was in pain, and I sought comfort.  From my own kind.”

Kerry winced.  Kim continued, sorry, but hoping to roll over that look rather than let it founder.

“I wanted to feel like myself again, Kerry.  I wanted to feel beautiful again... I felt so despised, so abandoned, so ugly inside.  I barely felt like a woman anymore, let alone a dyke.”  

Kerry’s face crumpled.  What had she done to her?  Helped to do to her?   

“I’m sorry, Kim.”  Kerry’s voice quavered but didn’t break.  A silence threatened to settle.  “Please keep talking.”

“What, Kerry... what could I possibly tell you that would make you decide that I didn’t do something wrong?”

“I don’t think that, Kim!  I’m just having a lot of trouble really feeling you right now... I don’t understand it, but all I know is I’m hurt, and I’m cold, and I don’t want to be either, and I need you right now to just deal with this with me, please, just deal with me.  I want this, but I can’t feel you right; I can’t do this until I can feel you.”  

“Okay.”  Kim heard her and calmed a bit, smoothing Kerry’s feet through the sheets.  “Okay, Kerry.  Keep going.”  

Kerry snuffled as she inhaled deeply. 

“I don’t think you did anything wrong.... You’ve got to remember that you’ve got a community... and, and a culture around you, Kim, and I don’t.  And I’m not whining, Kim. You’ve got this... this safety net to fall back on, and I really do understand that that includes things like... comfort sex.  I mean, when, when my husband and I... when it got ... close to the end, I... I had an affair.  So I think I understand, I do.  I felt so dead inside, and I thought, I thought if I could just prove that I’m alive, really prove it, then I can get through this, then I can see myself being alone again.  I just needed to know that my failure hadn’t killed me.  I spent a night in a man’s hotel room.  I could not tell you his last name if my life depended on it.”

“And were you?  Alive?”

“Basically.  More than I had been, I guess.  It wasn’t an earth-shattering experience.”

“Did YOU come, Kerry?”  Kim was one step late to quash her urge to strike back; she lowered her eyes in apology, but Kerry felt she deserved that much, and let it go.

“No,” she said, simply.  “No, I didn’t.  But still... I got what I wanted, and so that doesn’t make a difference in the scheme of it.”

“Then what’s the deal, Kerry?  Why are you so out of reach?”

Kerry considered the question.  Her eyes went hollow and drawn as she realized the original source of her fear.  “Because my husband and I were absolutely over, Kim.  That marriage was dead to me, and that’s what made me say yes to the affair.  And if you were with Lori... then... we would have to be....”

Kim stopped her right there.  She leaned to grip Kerry’s thigh through the sheet.  Kerry could only see the top back of Kim’s head and the beginnings of her back in that supplicative pose. “No baby, no baby... no.... I was trying to get a moment of peace, trying to get the feel of your fingers off of me, trying to get your taste out of my mouth...”  

Kim sat back up and refolded herself around her pillow.  “...trying to feel like myself again.  We would not be here tonight, Kerry, and I mean this sincerely.  Please look at me, Kerry.  I mean this, Kerry, if I had not been with Lori we wouldn’t be here tonight.” 

“Ah, what?”

“She made me respond to something... someone... again, Kerry, she made me feel like I wanted to feel... like I was... like I was worth a woman’s time.  She reminded me.  Of that, and also... of you.  She was as good a lover as I was ever used to, Kerry.”  

Kim lifted her head in what could have been pride save for the grief on her face.  Kerry’s nostrils flared in her effort to not respond.

“Until you.  Lori was everything I was used to, a good happy girl like Christy, like Kate, like anyone else you want to name.  And she was kind to me, good in bed, the works.  And I never needed to see her again, if I were honest.  But until your letter, Kerry... until your letter I was really ready to try it.  Cut my losses, help what could be helped.  Triage.”

Kim paused for breath.  She spoke matter-of-factly, without drama or pretense.

“You changed me, too Kerry... you woke up something in me, and I don’t want that to go away.  And that part of me is what I want back, really.  It was for that broken bit of me that I went into your ER to get that letter, and that’s part of why I’m here right now tonight with you.  I’m not happy without you, Kerry.  I miss me almost as much as I miss you.  Please don’t run from me, Kerry... I didn’t even have these words until tonight.  I _do_ have something to apologize for, Kerry.”

Kerry began to protest but Kim held up her hand.  “I was so concerned about leading you, about growing you into who I wanted.  I thought about how it must be for you coming out, every day I thought about it, but I never really tried to feel it from your perspective, Kerry, I just subbed in my own issues onto you.  That dinner with Christy, well, that would have been something that would have made _me_ feel welcome, not you.  Being out... which I could never have given up, regardless, Kerry... but I assigned you my issues when I pushed you.  I didn’t really... really see where you were.  

“I never wanted you to know about Lori, Kerry.  I didn’t want to hurt you.  But I’m not sorry for that.  I’m sorry I didn’t take more care with you, I’m sorry I didn’t get explicit with you.  You were always so together, Kerry... always.  You’re a rock.  And I expected that you always would be.  I guess I never thought that was work for you.  And I should have known, Kerry, I should have seen how different it was from the way you were with me.  I deliberately took your defenses from you, and... and if I hadn’t left you with nothing, maybe you would have been able to stand up for me.”

Kim hugged the pillow tightly.  Kerry was stock still.

“And I lost my own defenses in that same process, Kerry.  And Lori’s attentions helped bring me around.” 

Kerry paused to be sure Kim was through.  “I’ll never forget how bad that all felt, Kim, and on some level I don’t want to.  I never want to forget how low I went, how selfish I was.  I let them hunt you, Kim... I let them cart you off.  I had assumed you understood me, and I let the fact that we were so good together in bed, the fact that we were so tuned in and intuitive with each other sexually, I let that prove that assumption to me.  

“I never took the time to make you understand me, I never gave you a backdrop to see me against.  The whole time I was waiting for you to reject me; and so I parceled out what I showed you, trying to make it last as long as I could.  That’s how I was selfish, Kim.  Not about Romano.  With him, I was lost, I was terrified, and yes, I’m sick over it, and yes, I shouldn’t have been, but I was.  But you wouldn’t have been alone, Kim, even after that awful day, if I had let you into me more deeply.  We would have had roots, Kim, and we would have withstood it. 

“I drove you to Lori, Kim, I know.  And if it had to be someone, then I guess I should be grateful... no I _am_ grateful, I am grateful that she did have something to give you.”

Kerry’s hands were won-tonned into the folded edge of the sheet.  She tugged absently with them.

“Was she me to you?  When you were... inside her, when she was....  Was it me in your mind?”

Kim thought carefully.  “No, Kerry, she was her.”  She answered with the truth, and hoped.

“Thank you,” Kerry whispered, and was quiet.  Kim waited for the next diagnostic probing of her motives, but long moments passed quietly between them, refreshing the atmosphere.  

Kerry shifted so that her lips were pressed up against the tops of her knees, her slim arms clasped together in front of her shins.  Kim reached to lay her broad hand over Kerry’s small strong feet:  Kim’s hand easily covered the both of them.  

Kerry turned her face to free her lips and closed her eyes as she spoke in a very small voice.  “Do you still want me, Kim?”

The question hit Kim in the belly, seared through her chest, and stopped behind her throat, thickening her answer.  “Yes,” she said, repeating herself in case the first version had come out mute, “Yes.”

“After everything I’ve done, everything we’ve done, can you shoulder all that up and go through this with me?”

Kim nodded mournfully.  “Yes,” she whispered.  “Yes I can.”

She slipped her hand into Kerry’s.  Kerry let go her shins and sat up to look at her.  Kim’s pupils dilated as she spoke, “Are you up for that?”  

Kerry nodded.  

“Are you really here with me, now, then?”  

Kerry nodded.  

“May I take that sheet from you?”  

Kim’s rising shadow erased the glint of lamplight from the crease that had firmed between Kerry’s anxious brows.  

Kerry nodded.  
  



End file.
